The Metal Man: An Account of a WW2 Nazi Cyborg by Ben Stevens Read Free Book Online Page B

table.
     
    A thick pipe ran from one of the machines lining the wall into a socket in its right shoulder – a socket usually protected by a square-shaped cover that had upon it a gleaming red swastika. Matching this was another swastika, on exactly the same place on the left shoulder.
     
    A white-jacketed scientist, wearing industrial goggles, was using a welding torch on an area below the Metal Man’s left knee. Other scientists were stood by the various machines placed against the walls, observing the flickering dials and talking closely.
     
    But only Schroder knew the ‘complete picture’, as it were…
     
    Without his involvement, all this machinery – the very Metal Man itself – was just so much useless junk…
     
    But Schroder would never get to see his mother. Such a thing was clearly out of the question.
     
    So it was down to Reinhardt to have to stall the genius, half-Jewish scientist’s request for as long as possible…      
     
     
    10
     
     
    It felt nothing.
     
    Because there was nothing to feel.
     
    Pain, hunger, fear, cold – such sensations no longer existed. Had never.
     
    For a time it dwelt in darkness, conscious only of a faint humming sound coming from somewhere deep inside it.
     
    And then it was awoken, and instructed to leave the area where it lay and to makes its way, accompanied by those same two men wearing white jackets, to the vehicle. 
     
    Sometime later (although it had no recognition of the passing of time – it could have remained immobile until Doomsday, if so ordered) it was told to leave the vehicle.
     
    Then more orders, which it recognized by slightly inclining its head – the only way in which it was capable of communicating.
     
    The orders were such as might have been given to a mechanical infant. Simple and direct. ‘March forward’, ‘Fire’, ‘Destroy’, ‘Return when finished’.
     
    It saw the world with a large –
     
    +
     
    – in the centre of its vision. If it could now see almost as easily in darkness as it did in light, then it did not consciously realize this.
     
    Its orders were given and it fulfilled them. Every time the ‘+’ alighted on one of its designated targets, its finger applied a precisely-determined amount of pressure on the trigger of the weapon it carried, and that target ceased to exist.
     
    It heard the screaming, yelling and shouting that always accompanied this part of its mission, but such sounds stirred nothing within it.
     
    It only responded to its orders. Given by men in uniform and peaked hats stood in front of it, their men stood around. And when it was done – when its mission was complete – the same men sometimes crowded around it, grinning, perhaps slapping its arms and back as though in –
     
    It didn’t know. Immediately it discontinued this line of thought as being irrelevant. Always the next order came, from the man or men it recognized as being in authority –
     
    ‘Get back in the lorry.’
     
    And so it was returned to the one whose authority it recognized most of all. The man it knew had constructed it; who had spoken to it and implanted his voice deep into its conscious.
     
    And if one day this same voice was ever to speak and give a direct order…
     
    Then, above all else – it would obey that order.
     
    Whatever it was. 
     
     
    11
     
     
    The somewhat remote village of Hegensdorf lay to the east of Germany. It consisted mainly of a small train station and a modest town square, surrounded by fields and isolated little dwellings.
     
    That morning it was bright and sunny, despite the fact that it was well into autumn. Hans Greutmann, senior official and head record keeper at Hegensdorf town hall, waited nervously on the steps of the white building for his guest.
     
    The previous day, Major Fleischer of the Berlin Gestapo had curtly informed Greutmann by telephone that he’d be arriving at ten o’clock sharp the following morning.
     
    ‘I hope to receive your full